Snow Adventures
by canarylongbottom
Summary: Oneshot. Remus finds a book. Lily feels unloved. James comes to the rescue. All on a snowy Christmas Eve. Expect fluff.


**This is for my lovely Jily Secret Santa, moonyshoeslupin (Brigid). I really hope you enjoy it :). Merry Christmas, everyone!**

* * *

Lily Evans was sitting in the empty Gryffindor Common Room in a comfy sofa by the fire, spending her last Christmas Eve at Hogwarts alone. She quite liked being alone sometimes, but Mary, Marlene, and her other roommates had gone home and she was feeling quite peaceful without their constant chatter.

"Oi, Moony! What in the name of Merlin are you doing during _Christmas hols_ reading a buggering _book_?"

Startled by the sudden loud noise, Lily jumped and looked around. Oh, so she hadn't been alone—Remus Lupin had been sitting at another sofa, apparently engrossed in a book.

Remus rolled his eyes and looked up at Sirius Black, who was waving his arms around like a raving lunatic. James Potter—Lily's stomach did a backflip at the sight of the boy, which she tried her hardest to ignore—was regarding Sirius's antics with an expression torn between amusement with Sirius and exasperation with Remus. Peter Pettigrew was shaking his head disappointedly at Remus. The three boys were covered in snow.

"First of all, can I ask you what you were doing?" Remus asked the rest of the Marauders.

James grinned. "What were we _not_ doing?"

Sirius let out a bark-like laugh. "We only had _the_ most impressive snow adventure in all of history, one which surpasses the utter _amazingness_ of that time the four of us bewitched snowballs to follow Snivelly around for three days and he kept trying to figure out the spell we used."

Lily rolled her eyes and stood up, counting on the fact that the four boys were so engrossed in their story that they would fail to see her.

Peter giggled. "That was great. He ended up bouncing the snowballs off of his head for three weeks and everyone kept trying to find a counter for the spell and no one…could…"

His voice had trailed off, staring in horror at something behind Remus's shoulder. He turned around only to see Lily standing behind him, eyebrow raised.

"Whose idea was that?" she asked suspiciously.

James looked at Sirius.

Sirius looked at James.

"His," they both said in unison, pointing at each other. Peter and Remus stifled their laughs.

Lily tried—and eventually failed—to look stern. The four Marauders looked at her giggling with a somewhat shocked expression on their faces.

"I've got to admit that it _was_ funny—he walked into every class with snowballs floating around his head. He was like a magical Eeyore."

"Lily, are you okay?" James asked, incredulously.

"And what in the name of Dogweed's own dog is Eeyore?" asked Sirius.

"I'm fine, Potter." She had to call him Potter and not James so that he wouldn't know she liked him! "And Sirius, Eeyore is a character in a children's book. He's a depressive blue donkey who walks around with a storm cloud over his head. It follows him around everywhere he goes and rains on him."

Remus said, "No wonder he's depressed, then, if a storm cloud was bewitched to rain on his head all the time."

Peter shook his head. "Muggles are nutters, they are. Blue donkeys?"

Lily raised an eyebrow again. "You lot aren't much better! _Babbity Rabbity_, for Merlin's sake."

Sirius interrupted. "Anyway, guess what we did _today_? We were walking down the halls—"

"—and we bumped into good old Mulciber and Snivelly—" James continued.

"—and well, you know how Snivellus never misses an opportunity to hex Prongsie over here? Well, he tried setting our robes on fire—"

"—and, well, obviously we weren't going to take that lying down, what kind of men do you think we _are_—"

"—so we skipped out on them halfway, ran outside, covered ourselves in snow, and pretended we were snowmen!"

James grinned. "We scared them into oblivion. It was the best snow adventure by far."

"And what were you doing while we were having tremendous fun, Moony? You were reading. A _book_," said Sirius, as if he would have been reading anything else.

Remus rolled his eyes. "I had barely started. All I got to read was the title, and Prongs, the main character has your last name."

James's eyebrows rose. "Let me see, what does it say? _Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone._ Oh, it sounds like something for History of Magic. Someone on my dad's side probably discovered it, or something."

Lily looked interested. "Actually, Nicolas Flamel discovered the Philosopher's Stone. Who's Harry Potter? I've never heard of him before."

Sirius glanced at her and grinned. "Do you make a habit of recognizing Prongsie's relatives by name, Evans?"

Lily blushed. "No, but if he'd done something which merited having a book written about him, I would have known who he was, _Black_."

Remus nodded. "Yeah, me too. So far I'm only on the first page, and the characters that are mentioned are a Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of Number 4, Privet Drive."

"Ohmygoodnesswhat," gasped Lily.

There was a very long pause. Everyone was staring at Lily, who looked as if she was about to faint.

"Care to explain?" Sirius asked, bemusedly.

"Dursley—that's Petunia's fiancé's last name."

"Petunia?" asked Peter.

"My sister."

The Marauders exchanged a look. Each of the boys had once (or multiple times, really) been met with a heated tirade about Petunia Evans from Lily—however, she had never referred to her sister by name.

"No, it gets weirder. They're getting married soon and they already have a house picked out—Number 4, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey."

"That's impossible!" said James incredulously.

"Wait a minute," said Remus. "Let me read this aloud: _The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn't think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters. Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley's sister_—Prongs, you marry Lily!"

Amidst the shouts of triumph from Sirius and Peter, James's expression was one of delight, while Lily's was of confusion. She needed to remain calm; yes, this strange and magical book might predict her future and just said that she would marry _James_, but she needed to keep a sane head.

"Whathowisthatpossible. Remus, what book are you reading?"

Remus waved Lily's question aside and continued reading. "_Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley's sister, but they hadn't met for several years; in fact, Mrs. Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be._"

He paused, seemingly shocked by the words he had read. James and Lily sat in silence, trying their hardest not to look at each other. Lily's heart sunk and settled uncomfortably somewhere in her gut.

"Ouch, mate," said Sirius sympathetically.

"But I mean, if it's written from Lily's sister's point of view, which it seems to be…" Remus trailed off.

"Read more," said Lily.

"_The Dursleys shuddered to think what the neighbors would say if the Potters arrived in the street. The Dursleys knew that the Potters had a small son, too, but they had never even seen him. This boy was another good reason for keeping the Potters away; they didn't want Dudley mixing with a child like that_."

Lily's heart, which had been resting in her gut, sunk to her shoes.

"Typical Tuney," she said, attempting to smile it off. "She was always jealous of my magic."

"Does this story tell the future?" asked James, half-hopefully.

Lily shrugged, but her voice was hesitant. "I hope not…"

Suddenly her Christmas cheer had evaporated. She was overcome with a sudden urge to cry; she felt the tears prickling her eyelids. Lily hastily turned her face away from the boys—she didn't want them to see her crying over something as stupid as a mean sister.

But it was _Christmas_. The only reason Lily stayed at Hogwarts was to get _away _from her nasty sister. (Well—not the only reason. James Potter was sitting next to her, and he was pretty influential in her decision, too.) She didn't want to let her sister bother her anymore, but after hearing what Remus had read…

She quickly walked towards the exit of the common room. No one should see her cry, she was determined of that. Tears began streaming down her face halfway down the fourth set of stairs."

She only realized that she was not dressed for the snow when she was outside. Shivering, she hugged herself and turned around. She found herself face-to-chest with James Potter.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, hastily wiping away tears.

"You must be freezing," James said.

"A little."

"I don't have a jacket, but do you want this?" he asked, beginning to take off his white knit sweater.

"No, James, you'll freeze!" exclaimed Lily. "Why, it's got to be less than zero."

"Well then it's lucky I brought an extra for you," he grinned. Reveling in Lily's confusion, he brought out another sweater from his pocket.

"How did that fit in there?" asked Lily as she pulled on his sweater. It was large on her and smelled like him.

"Simple undetectable expansion charm. I can stuff a house in here and no one would notice. Course, I would, seeing as I'd have to lug it about with me…"

"Clever."

"Thanks," he said, grinning his lopsided grin that Lily had once hated so much. The two of them stood in silence for a few minutes.

"You left," James remarked.

"Stating the obvious now, are we?"

"How come?"

Lily sighed. "It's…I don't know, you don't have siblings who hate you. I'm terrified. What if that story Remus was reading turns out to be the future? Will she really just cast me aside like that? We…we used to be so close."

"So it doesn't bother you that we're supposed to get married and have a kid?" James sounded worried.

"No," she said quickly, and the moment she said it she realized that it was true. She blushed, and to her surprise, she noticed that James's face was a little pink, too.

He made a sudden movement and grabbed her hand. She didn't pull away.

"Lily, I know it's hard, but don't let your sister bother you. Not at Christmas! If she wants to hate you, if she wants to call me good-for-nothing, then let her. She doesn't know anything about us."

Lily paused for a moment, taking in his words. He was right, she realized. She should worry about her sister later, if at all. She glanced up at him and smiled, genuinely this time.

"James?"

"Mm?"

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. By the way, that makes two."

"Two what?"

"Two times you called me by my_ first _name instead of my_ last _name." His expression was pleased.

"Ah, well, I couldn't call the boy I'm supposed to marry by his surname forever."

The two of them walked hand-in-hand towards the building. They both looked up at the doorway.

"Mistletoe," whispered James.

"Xenophilius says they're full of Nargles."

"Screw what he thinks," he said, and kissed her on the lips just as the clock struck midnight.

"Merry Christmas," she whispered, and they kissed again.


End file.
